18,300 apply for NASA astronaut corps

The agency said it received more than 18,300 applications by Thursday’s deadline, shattering the old record of 8,000 set in 1978 and about three times the number received in the previous round in 2011.

NASA will now start the process of winnowing down those applications to the several hundred most qualified for additional review and interviews, although officials said that number could change given the large number of applications NASA received.

The agency ultimately plans to select 8 to 14 people as its newest astronauts by mid-2017. [New York Times]

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The Air Force will ground the Atlas 5 if use of the RD-180 engine is found to violate sanctions. Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves, commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, said Friday the Air Force would not use the RD-180 if the Treasury Department determines that a recent reorganization of the Russian space industry means that purchasing the Russian-made engine violates sanctions. Sen. John McCain asked the Air Force earlier this month to prove RD-180 purchases don’t violate sanctions because of changes that will make Roscosmos the majority owner of NPO Energomash, the company that builds the RD-180. [SpaceNews]

Virgin Galactic unveiled its second SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane Friday. The company rolled out the vehicle in an event at its Mojave, California, facility attended by dignitaries and some of its several hundred customers. The vehicle incorporates some improvements over the first SpaceShipTwo, lost in a fatal October 2014 test flight accident, including changes that directly address the root cause of that accident. Virgin Galactic is planning to start ground tests of this SpaceShipTwo, named VSS Unity, in the near future, followed by flight tests, but the company declined to provide a timetable for when the vehicle could be ready for commercial service. [SpaceNews]

DigitalGlobe is entering a joint venture with two Saudi Arabian organizations for a constellation of small Earth imaging satellites. The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) will build six or more smallsats capable of taking images with a resolution of 80 centimeters for launch in late 2018 or early 2019. KACST will own half of the imagery capacity for Saudi Arabia and the surrounding region, while DigitalGlobe will have the other half, as well as all of the remaining worldwide capacity. Another Saudi firm, TAQNIA, will be responsible for marketing KACST’s share of the images. DigitalGlobe says the satellites will complement its existing and planned satellites that offer sharper images. [SpaceNews]

China is working to launch both a Mars orbiter and rover in 2020. The head of China’s National Space Science Centre, Wu Ji, said it was working “urgently” on the ambitious mission, which would be China’s first standalone mission to Mars. He provided few technical details about that planned mission, beyond that it will likely require a launch on China’s new Long March 5 rocket. [gbtimes]